We, like many of you, were surprised when it was announced that popular route badge tracking site ZwiftHub would be shutting down at the end of April. Toby, the sole developer/artist behind the project, explained the reason for the shutdown:
First of all: Thank you to all the amazing individuals in the indoor cycling community who supported ZwiftHub. Thanks for sharing the cost of hosting the web app with me and for your supportive messages that kept me motivated to keep working on the project.
Exactly one year ago I published ZwiftHub and wrote this post on Reddit. What a journey it has been. ZwiftHub started as my first coding project in my endeavor to pursue a career change, combining my need for some practical software development experience and my passion for cycling.
When I started this hobby project, I didn’t dare to dream that one year later it has over 2,000,000 page visits, 60,000 registered users, and 280,000 unique visitors from 166 countries. My personal highlight was the recognition by two cycling media outlets I’ve been a fan of for a long time: GPLama and CyclingTips .
So why do I shut down ZwiftHub? Whilst I celebrated the success of the web app, the increasing user number meant that what started as a fun project ended up in a lot of unpaid work and higher costs to cover due to more traffic. Answering support emails, catching up with Zwift’s latest changes, fixing bugs, maintaining the backend, etc. This took up a lot of my free time – time I don’t have anymore because…
I have a new job! As I mentioned in the beginning ZwiftHub was my starting point to a career change to software development. It worked out. And, dream come true, I am able to stay within the indoor cycling realm. I’m working now for the company whose Kickr kicked off my indoor cycling career. I will keep working on enhancing your indoor cycling experience as a software developer at Wahoo Fitness – The Sufferfest.
Although Wahoo would allow me to keep my hobby project, this doesn’t align with my values; it’s not the right thing to do. As a longtime Wahooligan, I’m grateful for this amazing professional opportunity and want to focus on this challenge without distraction.
Thanks again to everyone who was part of this journey. No matter if Zwift or The Sufferfest, indoors or outdoors, fast or slow, uphill or downhill: I love cycling, you love cycling, spread the love, stay safe and healthy and I will see you out there!
Toby
While we were delighted to hear that Toby had achieved his career change goal – a dream come true for him! – we also knew that ZwiftHub served a need in the community. We, like many of you, didn’t want to see it go away.
At its core, ZwiftHub lets you track which Zwift route badges you’ve earned. It also provides a slick interface for filtering routes by world, map schedule, distance, elevation, and more. And of course, the route profiles Toby designed are super-useful, which is why we’ve included them (with Toby’s permission) on our route detail pages!
Toby did some very fine work with ZwiftHub, and we knew Zwifters were happily using it every day. So we contacted him and began discussing the possibility of taking over the site. And today we’re happy to announce that we’ve reached an agreement wherein ZwiftHub will continue to thrive under the Zwift Insider umbrella and expand as Zwift adds new routes!
If you’re already a ZwiftHub user, just continue using the service like before. And if you’ve never signed up to use the site’s badge tracking features, we’d encourage you to do so! Visit ZwiftHub.com to get started, and if you need a little help, here’s a printable PDF plan to ride all the Zwift routes.
Sponsors
Notably, Zwift has stepped up to help sponsor the migration of ZwiftHub content and other setup/maintenance/support tasks. But we’ll be looking for another ZwiftHub sponsor or two so the site doesn’t have to survive on donations alone. Message us at [email protected] if you’re interested in sponsoring!
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
Thanks sooooooo much!
That’s great news Eric 👍. people will be pleased
THANK SO MUCH! You (and Toby) are an amazing gift to the Zwift community!
This is awesome news, Eric!
Well done in contacting Toby and working out a deal. Excellent stuff. You continue to do great work for the entire Zwift community.
Bravo.
Thank you!!
Well done Eric – great news. Will be looking forward to new routes. Would you now consider adding the ‘rebel routes’ ?
Amazing, Thank you Eric. Zwift should incorporate this idea and help develop the project. In fact, you should be the Sponsor of ZwiftHub and help develop a platform that provides information that is very useful to Zwift users. They don’t have anything like that
Brilliant news! Thanks Toby for the great work (and congrats for new job!) and thanks Eric/Zwiftinsider family!
Such good news! Thank you!
This is awesome!
That’s great! Congrats to Toby! The site is in good hands.
Absolutely excellent news. Zwift Hub continues to live under new management.
I was just perusing that site yesterday thinking that there is no way this site can be allowed to disappear into the archives of the WAY BACK MACHINE!
Awesome news!!
Awesome news! Thank you all
❤️❤️❤️
Great news Eric. Other than Zwift doing it themselves (which they still should) this is the next best option!
Yeah it’s a shame we even need 3rd party sites like this (and Zwift Power, although hopefully now being integrated). Zwift are slow to implement some of the most desired options, such as accessing all this information in the home screen and not having to start a ride to see what routes you want to do. Even just a tick next to completed routes in the pull down list of routes would make things so much more helpful.
Thank you for taking over the zwifthub site.
Good to hear the Hub is being kept. Thanks Eric
Does Zwifthub link to your Zwift account and automatically update as badges are achieved?
Unfortunately not. It’s essentially like having your own spreadsheet that you update manually to keep track of the routes/badges, but done in a really helpful and informative way. As others have said shame it’s needed at all. I just have a printout of the routes I tick off with a pen, but Zwifthub is a great resource for checking the routes out without having to log into Zwift.
I have switch from zwifthub to pornhub but i think it’s not the same. zwifthub its better.😜
Thank you Eric
Good news! It’s great that this worked out as it seemed to be the perfect match in order to keep the site running.
Toby, excellent work! And all the best for your new job!
And yes, I also think your project is in good hands now.
You bought me some time to finish my last two route badges (for now!) 🙂
This is awsome news! Thank you to everybody involved! 🙂
Thanks Eric, and Toby for passing the site into safe hands.
That has made my day, I certainly made use of the zwifthub website and will continue to do so now, thanks to you. I can keep ticking off those badges now…….ride on!
This is great news. No API as yet though? So we need to toggle routes completed manually? Cheers!
That’s awesome; thank you Toby and thank you Eric !
Fantastic news! Much better than Microsoft Excel!
Thanks Eric.
Lovely! Zwifthub is fantastic :). Thank you Toby and thank you Zwift
Great move Eric!
Great news yes but I was hoping zwift themselves would scoop it up and integrate it . Still, this is really great regardless thanks
Well done Zwift Insider!!! Fair play for doing that…..this has made everyone happy no doubt!!!
Great news! Thanks for saving Zwifthub!
WOW! Many thanks to Toby, Eric and Zwift for sponsoring.
This is the best news!!! I love ZwiftHub and unhappily downloaded a paper list yesterday. Thanks for seeing the need and acting on it!
Fantastic!
Thank you Tony and Eric!!
“Toby”
And there was much rejoicing!
That’s great news, thank you.
just thanks!
Well played!
Excellent news, a very helpful site
Dear Eric, many thanks indeed – made my day. Zwiftinsider and Zwifthub are super useful tool which I clearly would miss deeply. Such a relief.
Great news.
Would be even greater if the Zwift UI was slick enough to make ZwiftHub useless, but then again, world peace would also be desirable, and both are in the same probability category.
Just great. Already planned to somehow copy this page at least locally.
Great news.
Maybe Zwift could also open up a bit, so that I don’t have to manually select my trophies.
Well done! This is great news! Thank you!
Brillant! Thank you Eric, and thank you Toby!
Thanks, Eric and Toby!